Right now, I'm rereading "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde. I'm also following Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels and Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastards series. (Apparently, Lynch is a fan of Final Fantasy VI and named his main character, Locke Lamora, after a certain treasure hunter!)

Dune... Messiah? I think that's the second. Anyways, it takes a moment to catch up on, I warn you, since it takes place a bit after the first - not a direct pick up, so to speak.

It reads a lot like the first, though, and I found it at times harder to follow, but then others were extremely straight-forward, like the underlying main plot line. It seems so complicated, but turns out not to be so complex as it first seemed.

Anyways, if you enjoyed the first, then you should like the second. Whichever of us makes it to the third installment first has an obligation to warn the other haha.

I've nearly finished the second and I think it's a bit of wallower. I can't recommend it. It misses out the best bits of the end on Dune and just leaps forward unfairly. The plot is a bit frustrating in places, and I think a lot of what was good about Dune is lost. Try it if you like but I don't know when or if I'll finish it. Maybe you'll be first hehe.

--------------------

Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

I've been reading a trilogy recently that I really enjoy. One of my old roommates recommended it to me. It's The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins.

The first book kind of started out slow for me but it picked up about the middle and I've been loving it ever since. The detail in the world that the author has created is amazing to me and the concept, though, done before (evil empire crunching on the helpless populace), to me was done so well. I'm loving it almost as much as I loved Harry Potter but in a different way. I don't know. If you like young adult science fiction/fantasy, you will probably enjoy this one.

--------------------

Chewbekah ^_^

Currently Playing: Final Fantasy XIV: ARR, Attack of the Firday Monsters, Animal Crossing: A New Leaf, Lego City Undercover, Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Remix

I just finished a biography of the band Phish, I'm working my way through Aristotle (metaphysics) and the Bible, but in terms of the thing I suspect I'll actually finish sometime soon, someone gave me a big-ol-collection of HP Lovecraft stories, which is neat because I didn't get into him back when everybody else in my peer group in Highschool was. I wonder if it'll make me devolve to the level of a cynical know-it-all goth kid in highschool that hates the world? Seriously though, having only read Cthulu before this, I'm pretty pumped. I don't read enough pulp and this is only borderline.

It's actually kind of a slow reading period for me. Back in July I hammered out the whole Republic by Plato, Hocus Pocus by Vonnegut, The Analects from Confucius, and the entire Gospels of Our Sufferings by Kierkegaard in like 2 days.

I think I'm posturing a bit here . Fear my enormous reading wang.

Edit: What I'd really like to get is a copy of Escher, Godel, Bach, which Tommah mentioned in some other "what are you reading thread" awhile ago. A friend of mine has it, but he's hesitant to give me the hardcover, which is sort of hypocrtical because his dog totally chewed up the hardcover on my complete stories of Kafka.

This post has been edited by MogMaster on 5th September 2010 23:07

--------------------

If you've been mod-o-fied,It's an illusion, and you're in-between.Don't you be tarot-fied,It's just alot of nothing, so what can it mean? ~Frank Zappa

I'm reading the Inheritance cycle (Eragon, Eldest and Brisingir) again, A Song Of Ice and Fire (I love the whole "support whoever you want to" vibe (Tyrion is the bomb!)) and The Wheel of time. Not all at once of course, but once I finish a series (Or get to the series latest book) I switch over to another and cycle it so I never run out of books to read.

--------------------

Since I advertise CoN there I think it's only fair that I advertise The Wiki here.

I started up on Ted Bell's Tsar the other night, which I picked up in hardcover for $7 right before I moved from Boston six months ago and hadn't read yet. Bell's a bit too proud of his own prose, and his main character feels too Gary Stu (or what have you), but the supporting casts tend to be good and he does pen a decent technothriller, filling the voids of Robert Ludlum's death and Tom Clancy's descent into mediocrity.

--------------------

"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Just started reading A Game of Thrones. I'm not normally a big fantasy novel fan, but it was HIGHLY recommended by a friend, so I thought I'd give it a spin, actually the friend said it was 'Tactics-esque' and I do love some political intrigue...

--------------------

"If art doesn't risk upsetting expectations and challenging its audience, it can only stagnate."

Just started reading A Game of Thrones. I'm not normally a big fantasy novel fan, but it was HIGHLY recommended by a friend, so I thought I'd give it a spin, actually the friend said it was 'Tactics-esque' and I do love some political intrigue...

That is coming to HBO next year, I read today. Sean Bean will be playing one of the characters. I might have to try the book at some point first, as the premise sounds interesting.

For my part, I just finished The Last Templar last night before bed. Even though I don't practice organized religion and really haven't since I was very little, I still find myself really intrigued by its history, and by extension, its historical fiction. I quite liked the book, it seemed to have better pacing and much better quality of writing than, say, the similar work of Dan Brown. I'll have to pick up the sequel at some point, it just came out last month.

--------------------

"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Just started reading A Game of Thrones. I'm not normally a big fantasy novel fan, but it was HIGHLY recommended by a friend, so I thought I'd give it a spin, actually the friend said it was 'Tactics-esque' and I do love some political intrigue...

That is coming to HBO next year, I read today. Sean Bean will be playing one of the characters. I might have to try the book at some point first, as the premise sounds interesting.

For my part, I just finished The Last Templar last night before bed. Even though I don't practice organized religion and really haven't since I was very little, I still find myself really intrigued by its history, and by extension, its historical fiction. I quite liked the book, it seemed to have better pacing and much better quality of writing than, say, the similar work of Dan Brown. I'll have to pick up the sequel at some point, it just came out last month.

For the both of you, if you haven't, read Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth.

Mainspring, by Jay Lake, was also an intriguing take on history and religion (albeit, much more fantastical)

--------------------

Games on the GoFinal Fantasy VIIFinal Fantasy: Four Warriors of LightBaldur's Gate

I just finished Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, which I read more as a personal dare than anything else. I've got Thus Spoke Zarathustra on my night stand, waiting to be either read or returned to the library. After that, I intend to try out the Tao of Jeet Kune Do for a change of pace.

And by far one of my favorites as well. Quite possibly the greatest modern interpretation of the Devil, joining the ranks of past authors like Dostoevsky and Goethe. Not a huge fan of the Murakami though.

I just went to the bookstore the other day, so I was pleasantly surprised to see this topic back up.

Currently reading some more Kierkegaard ("For Self Examination" and "Judge For Yourselves!", who, so far as I can tell at this point, is either a genius, a total moron, or completely mad.

Also picked up some others, although I'm not really reading them yet: Monkey (or Journey to the West depending on the translation), assorted writings on Existentialism put together by Walter Kaufmann (the Nietzsche scholar and translator), and a book by Stendhal I can't remember the name of just right now.

Slowly working my way through the Qu'ran too.

--------------------

If you've been mod-o-fied,It's an illusion, and you're in-between.Don't you be tarot-fied,It's just alot of nothing, so what can it mean? ~Frank Zappa

And by far one of my favorites as well. Quite possibly the greatest modern interpretation of the Devil, joining the ranks of past authors like Dostoevsky and Goethe.

I'm happy that I'm not the only one here who likes it. Speaking of which, I heard the book inspired the song Sympathy for the Devil by Rolling Stones. Like the book, it plays with the idea of the Devil not being completely evil, and it mentions Pilate.

I just got The Inheritance Almanac and have read through it a couple of times. From what it cost and what was advertised on Shur'tugal, it came off like it was going to have a lot more information in it.

I've begun to read the Pern series for the millionth time and a new series I just found called Dragon Keeper Chronicles. I'm on the third book, the author is very talented!

And I'm on Sir Walter Scott's "Waverly Place" a simply lovely book and another book series that I'm not sure I can say here....

I just finally finished reading my "Holy cow you're going to be a dad" book that I got right after we found out about the baby, and I just picked up Demitri Martin's book from the library, which is not at all surprisingly funny.

And I'm on Sir Walter Scott's "Waverly Place" a simply lovely book and another book series that I'm not sure I can say here....

Is it Twilight? To be honest the first thing I thought was something like 'Space Harlots I-IV'.

I'm currently doing a book to film extravaganza where I'm reading all those books that I've wanted to read after watching the film and the films of books I've read. So far I've read Fahrenheit 451, Watchmen, To Kill a Mockingbird and All Quiet on the Western Front (Im Westen nichts Neues) in English unsurprisingly. I still want to read Dr Zhivago, Heart of Darkness, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Lolita, and Northern Lights (The Golden Compass) again because the film was so awful. I'm gutted that Ex Drummer hasn't been translated into English so I'm probably going to buy it in Dutch and do a DIY with some help. It's only about 160 pages.

Not books so a bit OTT in an 'off the topic' kind of way, but anyway of the films of books I've read, I've so far seen Factotum, The Road, Watership Down, 1984 and The Lord of the Flies. It's a lot of fun. I fell in love with the rabbits all over again.

Has anybody read the book(s?) that Game of Thrones is based on and would you recommend them?

This post has been edited by sweetdude on 23rd July 2011 04:03

--------------------

Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

I've been reading like crazy this summer, so I think I'll just highlight a couple of my favorites that I've read in the last month. That seems fair, right?

Lolita by Vladimir NabokovI finally got around to reading this a couple weeks ago and wow, was it fantastic. Nabokov is just brilliant with the English language; he has great command over usage and vocabulary and he has sprinkled bits of wordplay throughout. The central scenario of the book, ie an older man's passion for a young girl, may seem a bit off-putting, but that's a great reason why this book is such an accomplishment; Nabokov, writing from the perspective of the older man, makes it impossible for you to hate him even though his acts are despicable. Very entertaining.

East of Eden by John SteinbeckA solid novel written around the parallel between three generations of two farm families and the biblical story of Cain and Abel. The tie between these two can be a bit oppressive at times, but this is easily forgiven as Steinbeck does some really great delving into the nature of good and evil and, ultimately, the freedom of man from fate.

The Moviegoer by Walker PercyThis was a really entertaining read that I finished a couple days ago. The Moviegoer is about a man who lives for the ideal world he sees on the silver screen and in the past and finds reality, in comparison, rather unattractive.

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo IshiguroMy favorite book of the summer thus far! It's about an aging butler in England in the middle of the century who has seen his profession, his society and his nation change rapidly in ways that leave him increasingly a creature of the past. During a short vacation from the manor he serves, the butler recollects his life as a servant of one of the most prestigious houses in the nation and reflects on the meaning of greatness. It's a heartbreaking, beautiful book that did everything I hoped it would and left me immensely satisfied.

I finished reading "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" by Nagaru Tanigawa about a month back, and "Plague" by Micheal Grant about a week ago. I TRIED reading "Forever" by Judy Blume, but I could not force my way through something that AWFUL. Micheal Wagner is the most annoying Gary Stu this side of... I dunno, I don't read that many fanfictions with Stus. Let's just say he sucks and leave it at that.

I generally stick with young adult fantasy but a trip to Barnes and Noble recently and looking through the fantasy section has tempted me to start branching out more. I will at least take a look at what Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman have been doing. But I am currently reading "The Maze Runner" by James Dashner. I'm starting to really get into it. I had a bit of trouble at first being that it was a story about a bunch of jerky pubescent and pre-pubescent teenage boys and whatnot but now the story is starting to get pretty interesting and my friend just finished the trilogy and really enjoyed it.

--------------------

Chewbekah ^_^

Currently Playing: Final Fantasy XIV: ARR, Attack of the Firday Monsters, Animal Crossing: A New Leaf, Lego City Undercover, Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Remix

I recently got The Chronicles of The Black Company (The Black Company, Shadows Linger, The White Rose) as well as The Books of the South (Shadow Games, Dreams of Steel, The Silver Spike) by Glen Cook. They're pretty good.

I recently got The Chronicles of The Black Company (The Black Company, Shadows Linger, The White Rose) as well as The Books of the South (Shadow Games, Dreams of Steel, The Silver Spike) by Glen Cook. They're pretty good.

That's weird: I just started The Black Company yesterday. Small world.

Anyway, I'm also reading Grendel by John Gardner and Self-Help by Lorrie Moore (as well as a smattering of poetry for school).